#167 Your secret weapon for working ONLY with your BEST clients

In this episode, Ilonka Ras discusses the importance of identifying and attracting the right clients for your business. She emphasises that the clients you work with can significantly impact your business efficiency and overall enjoyment of your work. By creating a client filter, business owners can focus on their best clients, leading to better cash flow, less stress, and more referrals. The conversation provides actionable steps to identify ideal clients and avoid those who drain energy and resources.

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Link to Music Credits
Track: Positive Motivation
Author: AShamaluevMusic (ASM)
Publisher: CD Baby (IPI 700570289)

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Transcript

Ilonka Ras (00:00.524)
If your business is filled with clients you don't enjoy working with, that's not just bad luck. It's a sign that your marketing is attracting the wrong people. Your messaging, offers, and sales process all determine who comes into your world. And if you're constantly dealing with clients who push your boundaries, ignore your process, and drain your energy, it's because intentionally or not you've been calling them in. This is why knowing who your best clients are is so important.

When you speak directly to the right people, they will opt in and the wrong clients will naturally filter themselves out. Now let's get real for a second. If you've ever had a nightmare client who drained your time, questioned your pricing and made you rethink your life choices, you're not alone. The good news is you don't have to keep dealing with it. Today I'm going to show you how to create a client filter so that you only work with clients who respect your time, pay on time and actually make running your business easier.

Working with only your best clients is actually an efficiency tool. Bad clients don't just drain your energy, they actually slow down your entire business. They push boundaries, they ignore your processes, they take up more time than they should. They might be very demanding and requesting highly customized work. And that might not be the best fit for your specific business. Your best clients, on the other hand, make everything run smoother. They trust your expertise, they pay for the value you provide.

and follow through on what they commit to. That means that there are fewer emails, fewer revisions, and no chasing invoices, just efficient, profitable work. When you work with the right clients, you actually enjoy your business more. You actually want to show up for them because they respect your time, get great results, and energize you rather than exhaust you. It's a win-win relationship. And that is when work stops feeling like a grind. Now here's something most people overlook.

Your best clients aren't just easy to work with. They're also often the ones who spend the most money with you the most frequently. The clients who invest at a higher level are the ones who truly value your expertise. As the saying goes, trust their wallets, not their words. So what makes a client a best client or a worst client? Well, that depends on your business. Every business has an ideal client and your job is to identify who they are so that you can attract more of them into your world.

Ilonka Ras (02:24.077)
and repel the ones that aren't a good fit. So here are a few of the attributes that often come up when I help business owners run a best client filter exercise for their business. Most often my clients will say that their best clients pay on time. There is no games, no excuses. They also follow their processes. They're not constantly trying to tweak and change things because they hired you, the expert, for a reason. They trust your expertise and they take action on your suggestions and your advice.

They also often get great results and refer more people like them to your business. They spend the most money with you because they see and appreciate the value your business provides. Worst clients on the other hand question your pricing. They might even consistently ask for discounts, but expect VIP treatment. They need constant hand holding, then disappear when it's time to take action. They drain your energy and make you dread checking your email.

One of my clients actually said, when I saw this worst client phone me, I knew that they were a worst client because I didn't actually want to answer the phone. Worst clients need convincing. They will often say things like they love your work, but they hesitate when it's time to pay. A worst client costs you time and money. A best client makes you more efficient. So how do you attract more of the right ones? That is by creating a client filter.

Grab your notebook or get out a piece of paper and write down the following three things. Firstly, I want you to identify who your best clients are. So look at your current clients and past clients and ask yourself, which of these clients did you actually love working with? Who got the best results working with you? Who was the best fit? Who would you gladly work with again? What do all of these best clients have in common?

Also, you might ask yourself which of these clients actually spent the most money with you because these are usually your best clients, right? Because they value your services. They'll gladly give you their money over and over again. Step two is to spot the red flags. That is the worst clients. Who are the clients that drained your energy? What do they do that makes your job harder? What warning signs can you watch out for early on?

Ilonka Ras (04:41.871)
Step three is to actually take the information that you've gathered. You now know who your best clients are and who your worst clients are. And this is in essence your client filter, right? So now before you price your services, create a new offer or take on a new client, run them through this filter. If they don't check the right boxes, don't bend your business to fit them. Say no and move on. You'll thank yourself later.

So let's quickly talk about what happens when you actually commit to only working with your best clients. In the clients that I work with, the results are often things like better cash flow because they're not chasing payments. Best clients pay your price and they pay on time. They also have more word of mouth growth and referrals because best clients refer other best clients. Turns out cool people hang out with other cool people. The opposite is also true.

There's also a lot less stress inside of the business because you're not actually spending energy on those energy vampires that are filling your calendar. And because working with your best clients allows you to systematize the business for the best client and increase your productivity and efficiency, it actually helps your business grow faster as well. And just think about it, if you're spending 80 % of your time on clients who nickel and dime you,

That's time you're not spending on high value clients, the one who will happily pay premium rates and respect your process. Now, once you know who your best clients are, finding more of them gets way easier because now you know where to look. You can think about places they hang out, right? Industry events, high-end networking groups, online communities. You can consider the books they read, books, blogs, and thought leaders in their space.

You can also think about things they listen to, right? Podcasts, YouTube channels, industry influences that they might be following, other experts, mentors and brands that they trust. Your job is to show up where they are, get featured on the podcast they listen to, write content that speaks directly to them, become the obvious choice for the right people. If you're done wasting time on the wrong clients, comment the word filter below this video and I'll send you my free client filter worksheet.

Ilonka Ras (06:53.404)
so that you can apply this in your business today. Now, before you go, tell me in the comments, what's the biggest red flag that tells you a client is not the right fit? Let's compare some notes. I'll see you in the next video.